Green Stage’s Backyard Bard players will be presenting two delightful Shakespeare plays this coming Friday (July 14) and Saturday (July 15) at the Wallingford Playfield (N 42nd St and Wallingford Ave N) at 7 pm. The plays are free but donations will be accepted.
These Shakespeare plays have been edited down to one hour each to make it all the more fun, especially for the younger, squirmier set. Wallingford is the place for opening night for both of these plays to be presented later at nine other neighborhood parks in Seattle. So bring your champagne and wish them well for a successful summer season.
On Friday evening we will see Cymbeline, a seldom performed play from ancient Britain about intrigue, treachery, romance, double dealing and laughs. Old King Cymbeline has to deal with a daughter who has already, secretly married someone the King can’t stand, secret missives from Rome and a (second) wife who wants to poison both the King and his daughter to gain the crown for her son. Not only that, they have to deal with a threatened invasion of Britain by Roman legions. Hermits, soothsayers and Jupiter himself add to the confusion.
On Saturday evening the Backyard Bard players will present the better known Comedy of Errors, in which two sets of identical twins are scrambled up and are now masters and servants. Meeting each other results in mishaps, mistaken identities, beatings, attempted seduction, an arrest, theft and demonic possession, all to generate laughs and more laughs. The plot is not complex but you’ll have to work to keep who is who straight.
Cymbeline, as Shakespeare wrote it, has 34 characters and the Comedy of Errors has 15, with less than one-fourth women. This all woman, versatile cast will pull this off with only four actors. The quick change costuming itself is challenging. With women playing so many male roles you won’t have the simplest way to keep the characters somewhat straight. Of the three members of the production team, one is an Intimacy Director. It is not clear what that suggests; will it still have a PG rating?
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